AMANDA MCDERMOTT COUNSELLING
I am a BACP Registered and NCPS Accredited therapist offering online, face to face and telephone counselling.
ABOUT ME
I provide one-to-one counselling via secure online platforms such as Zoom or Skype, and via the telephone.
I am a fully qualified, Trauma Informed, Integrative Therapist offering a safe, judgement free, supportive and empathic space for you to explore your present and past experiences.
Being an Integrative Therapist means I draw on and incorporate various approaches to therapy in order to provide you with a more personalised counselling service that suits you, your current situation and your goals. Trauma Informed practice means that my approach to working with people who have experienced trauma is very much non-pathologizing. All trauma responses are a natural part of the healing process and my goal is to help you to understand this process so that you can move through it with understanding and support.
I can offer you a safe space where you will feel respected, heard and supported.
My counselling approach is both relaxed and interactive, and I have incorporated techniques from various schools of counselling, writers and teachers in this field. I believe deeply in empowering individuals to enable them to make changes in their lives. I employ person centred, existential, psychodynamic and solution focused techniques, deep empathic listening, reflection and analysis. I have a particular interest in the impact trauma can have on the body and in working with individuals who have experienced rape, sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse.
Other issues I work with include, but are not limited to; anxiety, depression, domestic violence, trauma, stress and neurodiversity.
Although there is still some stigma attached to taking up therapy and discussing mental health, taking the time to explore and talk about our emotional needs and mental health can be extremely rewarding. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch – I would be happy to discuss whatever is on your mind.
HOW DOES COUNSELLING HELP?
Much of the research into what works in therapy has found that it is the therapeutic relationship that is formed between the counsellor and the client that has the greatest impact.
This therapeutic relationship focuses on what you need to heal, creates greater self-awareness and helps to highlight how your own past and present circumstances may have affected the way you feel.
Through this awareness you are able to develop new insights and be open to seeing greater possibilities when faced with feeling overwhelming anxieties that may have previously felt unmanageable.
WHY INTEGRATIVE THERAPY?
Integrative Counselling can be described as an approach to therapy that draws on the use of specific techniques and key concepts from various approaches to fit the individual needs of the client. The advantage of integrative therapy is its pluralistic approach and the ability to focus on the whole of the individual and integrate different approaches to meet a range of needs, making it a more flexible and inclusive approach than singular forms of therapy.
My own approach to integrative therapy is assimilative in nature, using Carl Rogers’ Person Centred Approach of relationship based therapy as a starting point, while also drawing on some of the key concepts and interventions of the Existential, Psychodynamic and Solution Focussed approaches to counselling. It is my belief that the integration of techniques should remain fluid throughout the process in order to continually adapt according to the client’s needs. In other words, my integration of techniques will not be limited to a one-technique per person style, but rather the techniques will be integrated throughout the individual therapeutic process.
It is important to note that the technique of the therapist should not define the therapeutic experience, but rather, it should come from the experience, and therefore, while it is a useful starting point in achieving theoretical integration to have a central framework, this benefits from a degree of flexibility in order to really meet the individual needs of the client, and should not be imposed upon the therapeutic process.
TRAUMA INFORMED APPROACH
HELP WITH ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION
RAPE, SEXUAL ASSAULT, CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE
“Self awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human.”
Irvin D. Yalom
CONTACT ME
I am currently providing one-to-one counselling via Zoom or Telephone.
07884186106
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